


Dippin Dates

by Joe007



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joe007/pseuds/Joe007
Summary: Makoto has an awful day, Ren cheers her up with an impromptu swimming date.Written for TyrantLizardKing as his secret santa gift, under the promt Swimming date. I chose swimming date as it was the one I was least used to, having never even thought about a Shumako swimming date before.Notes at the endComments and constructive criticism encouraged as always
Relationships: Amamiya Ren/Niijima Makoto, Kurusu Akira/Niijima Makoto, Niijima Makoto/Persona 5 Protagonist
Kudos: 30





	Dippin Dates

  
  


“So how was your day?” Ren had innocently asked as they started to walk home from Shujin. It was one of those increasingly more common days where they were both so busy that neither had got a chance to chat during school.

He was about to learn, Makoto had had a very bad day.

As they walked the way to the train station, Makoto let loose a barrage of her grievances from the day. From some work she didn’t understand, to the extra work she had to do, her favourite lunch was sold out after she forgot her normal one at home, she’d got into an argument with Ryuji and Ann about yesterday's trip to Mementos where they’d nearly got hurt and finally she finished her rant off with she was only just now getting to talk to her boyfriend.

Ren calmly listened, and tried to talk back in the little breaks there were, all the while he tried to figure out a solution.

“Want to do something energetic then? To take your mind off of things?” He finally said, after Makoto had finished her list.

“That sounds like a good idea.” Makoto said, although she didn't sound enthusiastic. 

“Aikido? I can spar a little at least.” Ren Suggested.

“No, after our last.. Er… trip, I hurt my wrist thanks to Ryuji, don’t really want to aggravate it further” She lowered her voice while looking around. While Ren no longer carried as much stigma of being the transfer student, thanks to his grades and him seeming to have befriended the student council president, they still didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to him. Announcing they’re both phantom thieves would probably do that.

Ren pondered for a moment.

“Oh! How about going for a swim? There’s a local pool near me.”

“You know, that actually sounds fun. I’ll have to go home first.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s meet up at 6 then? Come to Leblanc first so we can drop off our stuff.”

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Ren left the changing rooms he was surprised to both see Makoto already standing by the pool, and that it was practically empty. As he put his towels on a seat, he watched her do a graceful dive into the deep end. As she resurfaced, he held up an imaginary judge's sign and said “10”, which earned a giggle from her. 

His dive was a lot less graceful, earning another giggle when he swam over. 

“So how was my dive?” He asked

“Hmm.” She pretended to think hard. “A strong 6.”

“Not bad, considering it's been years since I’ve been swimming, I kinda just fell in.”

“It’s been that long? I’m not gonna be rescuing you anytime today am I?”

Now it was his turn to laugh. “I’m a bit rusty, but I’m not gonna drown on you.”

After a few short moments of splashing around and getting used to the water, Ren had an idea.

“Hey, how about a race? To one end and back?”

Makoto nodded enthusiastically, and Ren noted how she already looked cheered up. His plan had worked.

“Freestyle to start with?” She said

“Sure… which one’s that again?” He asked

She laughed “Wow it has been a while for you, think it’s also called the front crawl.”

So as they lined up at the shallow end to race, Makoto noticed Ren had a funny look on his face. It soon disappeared however when he turned to her.

“Ready?... Go!” He shouted, not giving her time to react.

“HEY! Ren!” She shouted, before launching after him.

And as she swam, Makoto forgot all about her worries of the day, week, month, and even the years issues faded from her mind. All she concentrated on was her swimming, and how Ren had made such a bad day turn good with such a simple plan. Just the rhythmic strokes and breaths she took.

Before she knew it, her arm hit the far end of the pool. As she turned around to race back she paused to look where Ren was.

To her surprise, he had fallen further behind then she thought. She expected to be ahead even with his headstart, considering she had swam a few times in the past year. But the pool wasn’t really long enough for either of them to move too far ahead. So as she stopped to watch him, it was weird that she had enough time to watch his poor form catch up to the edge.

As Ren caught up, he could see Makoto had stopped.

“You know we said there and back right?” He joked.

But Makoto was blunt. “Your form was terrible. You shouldn’t have noticed I stopped, your head’s supposed to stay below the water.”

“Then how do I breathe?” He joked

“I’m serious Ren. You’ll not only go a lot faster, but you fall into a rhythm when you do it properly. Show me what you were doing before and I’ll help you.” 

And so for the next 20 minutes, Makoto tread water, while she pointed out what to improve, physically moving his arms and head when needed. Slowly but surely, Ren was able to complete a fairly slow, but mostly perfect form. As he went a bit further down the pool and back, showing his progress, Makoto beamed at him.

“While we’re doing this, show me your breaststroke style too.”

So they worked on his other techniques too, which were quite poor for someone as fit as him. Including a pretty pathetic attempt at the butterfly stroke which just had him slapping the water with his arms, nearly causing Makoto to cry with laughter, surely he was doing that on purpose.

Before long, they realised they’d been in the water for far longer then they’d originally planned and it was time to get out.

“Hey, if you’re not ready to go back home yet, I can whip up some food and coffee, could even study for a bit?” Ren suggested as they climbed out.

Makoto looked at her boyfriend, who had spent the last two hours doing his best to lighten her mood after she’d had an awful day. She almost felt guilty about the effort he’d put in.

“That sounds lovely Ren.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Makoto laid out her workbooks in her usual study order, allowing room for a plate of Leblanc curry on her side, and Ren’s books on the other. Before stopping and watching Ren work. He was busy making a special cup of coffee that was Makoto’s favourite while the curry warmed up. She couldn’t believe that he was still doing stuff for her, now she just wanted him to sit down and rest. 

So, after what seemed like forever, he finally brought over their food and drinks. After the energy expelled through their swim they were both ravenous and ate quite quietly, until finally there was just their coffee and books on the table.

As Ren sat back down from clearing the plates, she rested her head against his shoulder, smiled and said very quietly.

“You know, sometimes I feel like I don't deserve you. You’ve gone through all this pain of the last year, and still all you do is give, I don’t feel like I’ve been a good girlfriend.”

But to this, he smiled and as he kissed her on the head, said “It’s funny, cause back when you were helping me swim, that’s all I could think too.”

“Hm, maybe we just need to notice what we actually do ourselves every now and again.” She thought aloud.

“Yep, we make a great couple, because we support each other perfectly, even if we don’t always see it.” He continued “Besides, I don’t mind being your hero for a day.”

She turned to look at him. “The Joker saved his Queen from her own problems once again.” She giggled. “Did you really not know how to swim by the way?” She asked.

“It has been a long time, but maybe I was a little slow to remember some of those moves. He smiled.

“I knew it!” She laughed as she kissed his cheek. “You can't get anything past me.” 

And as they laughed, Makoto realised her very bad day had turned into a great one.

Damn that boy’s good.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, what a year.
> 
> Fun fact, this story had the working title "Swim'll fix it" while I was working on it. I'm very bad with names.
> 
> Sorry for the wierd upload scheldue but life's been hectic as anything.
> 
> 2 Promises though, 1 more story next week, and more consistant ones next year, follow me on twitter for actual updates.  
> https://twitter.com/joehenplaysP5?s=20
> 
> Barring that, Merry Christmas, happy holidays and I hope next year is a much better one for you. x
> 
> Joehen


End file.
